A-A: This Letter Denotes A Single Sound, Whose Pronunciation Is Always
A-A: This Letter Denotes A Single Sound, Whose Pronunciation Is Always
A-A: This Letter Denotes A Single Sound, Whose Pronunciation Is Always
drawn out. The "glide" with which English vowels frequently end should be
avoided. It should be noted that a, i, u, are always pronounced the same way; e
and o, on the other hand, have an open and a closed sound that may vary from
one part of Italy to the other.
Also, when vowels are grouped together in a word, they are always pronounced
separately.
o Casa » house.
o Amore » love.
o Fama » fame.
o Pasta » pasta, dough, pastry.
As an English “a” in hay, layer, may (this is popularly called a narrow "e" or
closed "e")
As an English "e" in send, met, tent, hen (this one is popularly called a wide "e"
or open "e").
o Bene » well.
o Vento » wind.
o è » is.
o Festa » party; holiday.
o Invidiare » to envy.
o Bimbo » child.
o Libro » book.
o Vino » wine.
o Dono » gift.
o Mondo » world.
o Nome » name.
o o » or.
Moda » fashion.
No » no.
Brodo » broth.
Olio » oil.
o Fungo » mushroom.
o Luna » moon.
o Lungo » long.
o Uno » one.
talian has the same consonants that English does. You pronounce some of them
the same way, but the rest have noteworthy differences.
Additionally, the modern Italian alphabet has less letters than the English one: J,
K, W, X and Y do not occur in native terms. Nevertheless, these letters do
appear in dictionaries, for archaic spellings, and for a few foreign and
international terms officially adopted in Italian, as well.
L is sharper and more forward in the mouth than in English, similar to l in
link. Examples:
Olio » oil
Lingua » language
Sale » salt
Lungo » long
Melone » melon
Luna » moon
Scuola » school
talian has the same consonants that English does. You pronounce some of them
the same way, but the rest have noteworthy differences.
Additionally, the modern Italian alphabet has less letters than the English one: J,
K, W, X and Y do not occur in native terms. Nevertheless, these letters do
appear in dictionaries, for archaic spellings, and for a few foreign and
international terms officially adopted in Italian, as well.
The consonants b, f, m, n, v are pronounced as in English. The
approximate English equivalents are as follows:
L is sharper and more forward in the mouth than in English, similar to l in
link. Examples:
Olio » oil
Lingua » language
Sale » salt
Lungo » long
Melone » melon
Luna » moon
Scuola » school
No » No
Nonna » Grandmother
Stress is the audible accent that you put on a syllable as you speak it. One
syllable always gets more stress than all the others. Although there is no strict
rule, in most Italian words the accent or stress falls on the penultimate syllable.
But for this rule there are too many exceptions.
In Italian, only vowels have accents. All vowels at the end of a word can have this
accent (`), but only the “e” can have both (`) and (´). The difference lies only in
the pronunciation. That is, è is pronounced very open, as in “hell”, whereas é is
more closed, as in “gourmet”. Here are some examples:
Caffè ("kahf-feh") » coffee
Città ("cheet-tah") » city
Lunedì ("loo-neh-dee") » Monday
Perché ("pehr-keh") » why; because
Però ("peh-roh") » but
Università ("oo-nee-vehr-see-tah") » university
Virtù ("veer-too") » virtue
Is very unusual for Italian words to be spelt with accented letters, with very few
exceptions discussed further in this page.
In ordinary spelling accented vowels are allowed, but very seldom used. Only in
two cases accented vowels are commonly used:
There are many words of this kind in Italian (nouns, verb inflections, adverbs,
etc.), and some are frequently used. An accent is compulsory in this case,
otherwise the stress would not be heard. Furthermore, in some cases the same
word spelt without an accent even has a different meaning (see further down). A
few words with a similar spelling, but whose last syllable is not stressed, are
shown on the right:
Also several compounds of che (pronounced "ke", meaning which, that) are spelt
with an accent:
A few words have a different meaning when different syllables carry the accent.
Note that the stress is in the underlined syllable:
In this case, accents are not mandatory; in most cases they are not used,
therefore the correct pronunciation of the word is understood only by the context
of the phrase: for instance, considering the third couple of sample words, in
sentences such as "sometimes strange things happen" or "he is the captain of
the ship", neither of the two words could be mistaken with the other.
In Italian, as well as all the other Romance languages (French, Spanish, etc), all
nouns have a gender and a number associated with them. The article indicates
gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural) of the noun.
il professore » the teacher.
il telefono » the phone.
il vecchio zio » the old uncle.
la casa » the house.
la tavola » the table.
la finestra » the window.
When using nouns, you must make sure that you use the correct gender and
number when using an identifier. The identifiers are il, lo, la, i, gli, le, un, uno and
una. Il, lo and la are singular definite articles, which means you are talking about
a specific thing. Examples:
La sedia » the chair (you are talking about a specific chair)
Il telefono è verde » The telephone is green.
La parete è brutta » The wall is ugly.
The use of these identifiers is identical to the way you would say it in English - if
you want to say "a table", use una, and if you want to say "the table", use la.
"i" and "gli" are the plural of "il" and "lo", and "le" is the plural of "la". You use
these plural definite articles when you are talking about several specific members
of a group. There are no plural forms of uno and una, and to translate "some"
when used in sentences, one must use indeterminate pronouns. Examples
Singular Plural
il piatto bianco (the white plate) i piatti bianchi (the white plates)
MASC.
il cane grande (the large dog) i cani grandi (the large dogs)
la pizza calda (hot pizza) le pizze calde (hot pizzas)
FEM.
la carne tenera (tender meat) le carni tenere (tender meats)
Noun Gender:
In English, a vast majority of nouns are neutre (masculine and feminine are only
used for human beings or for animals), while articles and adjectives have no
gender at all. In Italian instead, nouns, adjectives and articles too are either
masculine or feminine, but never neutre.
Noun Number:
For nouns, the number (whether the word is singular or plural) works exactly as
in English: the singular form is used when referring to one subject and the plural
form when referring to two or more. But in Italian also adjectives and articles are
number-sensitive, whereas in English only the noun changes; while in Italian also
the article and the adjective would be turned in plural form.
Personal pronouns are little words that replace persons or things: he, she, they,
it, me, her etc. Personal pronouns can play the role of subjects or be in a
different role. For instance, in the sentence "I eat a food", "I" is a subject, but in
the sentence "That lion wants to eat me", "me" is the object.
Other pronouns (not personal) also replace nouns, with a more specific usage.
For instance, this can replace a noun, with a meaning similar to it (or he/she),
e.g. in the sentence this is good for you.
Subject Pronouns: Subject Pronouns are often omitted, since the verb form
indicates the subject:
Since the endings of conjugated verb forms indicate person and number, subject
pronouns may be omitted in Italian except when necessary: (1) for clarity, (2)
when modified by anche (also), or (3) when emphasis or contrast is desired.
Examples:
It and they referring to things are almost never used in Italian and need not be
translated. Below you can see a table with subject pronouns:
loro » them
lui » him
lei »her loro » them
esso » it (m.) essi » them (m.)
essa » it (f.) esse » them (f.)
Personal pronouns are the only part of the sentence in which Italian makes a
distinction between masculine/feminine and neutre. Neutre gender is used for
objects, plants and animals except man; but this distinction does not cause any
important change, because all other parts of the sentence (nouns, verb
inflections, adjectives, etc.) do not have a neutre gender, which is simply handled
by using either masculine or feminine.
A: "A" means "to" (indirect object and movement) or "in", indicating location
(cities and places).
When preposition "a" is followed by another word starting with a vowel, for mere
phonetic reasons it changes to "ad". Examples:
Da: "Da" means "since", "from" (to come from), "by" (passive) and it's used with
location referring to people. Examples:
Per: "Per" It can translate English for, to, by, or even as, according to the
different use. Examples:
o Sono tra(fra) il tavolo e la sedia » I'm between the table and the chair
o Vengo a casa tra(fra) due minuti » I'd come home in two minutes
o l'autobus passerà fra(tra) due ore » the bus will pass in two hours time
o l'albero fra(tra) le due case è alto » the tree between the two houses is
tall
Prepositions are those little words that mark places in space or time. When
prepositions are used together with definite articles, the preposition and the
article are sometimes condensed into a single word. When they are not followed
(and bound) to articles, they are called "simple prepositions".
A: "A" means "to" (indirect object and movement) or "in", indicating location
(cities and places).
When preposition "a" is followed by another word starting with a vowel, for mere
phonetic reasons it changes to "ad". Examples:
Da: "Da" means "since", "from" (to come from), "by" (passive) and it's used with
location referring to people. Examples:
Per: "Per" It can translate English for, to, by, or even as, according to the
different use. Examples:
o Sono tra(fra) il tavolo e la sedia » I'm between the table and the chair
o Vengo a casa tra(fra) due minuti » I'd come home in two minutes
o l'autobus passerà fra(tra) due ore » the bus will pass in two hours time
o l'albero fra(tra) le due case è alto » the tree between the two houses is
tall
A verb is a part of speech that usually denotes action (bring, read), occurrence
(to decompose (itself), to glitter), or a state of being (exist, live, soak, stand).
Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors,
possibly including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. It may also agree with the
person, gender, and/or number of some of its arguments (what we usually call
subject, object, etc.). Examples:
to to to to
parlare scrivere dormire finire
speak write sleep finish
to to to to
cantare vedere partire colpire
sing see leave hit
lavorar to to to to
vendere aprire costruire
e work sell open build
to to to to
amare vivere servire sparire
love live serve disappear
Verb features
(*) There are few verbs of the -ire conjugation in Italian that have different suffix .
You come down from the stars) Astro del Ciel
(Silent Night)
Tu scendi dalle stelle o Re del cielo,
e vieni in una grotta al freddo e al gelo,
Astro del ciel, Pargol divin, mite Agnello
e vieni in una grotta al freddo e al gelo.
Redentor!
O Bambino mio divino, io ti vedo qui a tremar.
Tu che i Vati da lungi sognar, tu che angeliche
O Dio beato!
voci nunziar,
Ah! Quanto ti costò l'avermi amato.
luce dona alle genti, pace infondi nei cuor!
Ah! Quanto ti costò l'avermi amato.
luce dona alle genti, pace infondi nei cuor!